fill these empty spaces
by bravevulnerability
Summary: It's been nearly four years since the last time he heard her voice. AU. Oneshot.


**A/N: Another prompt sent to me on tumblr that was meant to be a short, simple ficlet, but spiraled into a mini monstrosity instead. Apologies for any potential mistakes.**

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><p><em>prompt: Beckett doesn't let Castle come back after 3x01<em>

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><p>He traces patterns on the dark wood of the table, swirling shapes made of the condensation from his glass, listening to the rain pounding against the building. The bar is mostly empty and though he appreciates the business, he's glad for the lack of human company tonight. Most nights. He's not much of social butterfly anymore.<p>

Rick abandons the beer in front of him for the newspaper he's been staring at for the majority of his evening, unfolding it for the fifth time in the last hour, spreading it out in front of him, splaying his fingers over the words, the headline, the picture. His thumb brushes the line of her profile.

She caught the dragon and made the front page. Kate. He's proud of her. He misses her. He closes the paper again.

The annoying little bell above the front entrance - he really needs to remove that thing - jingles with the arrival of a new patron. Castle doesn't look up, but when he hears the voice, the soft but uneven lilt he's gone years without, his head jerks.

And there she is, soaking wet, ordering a glass of whiskey. He stands without thinking.

"Kate."

Her name echoes through the quiet of the bar, over the melancholy melody of the piano, and she swivels towards him, recognition, shock, and something he doesn't dare believe is joy bringing life to her tired face.

"Castle?"

He nearly stumbles trying to get out of the booth, trips over himself in his haste to reach her. He expects her to hold herself away, to wear that same mixture of hurt and anger like she had all those years ago when she told him to go home and not to come back, but she doesn't waver in his presence.

"You're drenched," is the first thing he says - he's not so good with words anymore either - and she glances down at herself, as if she wasn't already aware.

"I - it started to rain," she offers, digging in her coat pocket when her drink is placed on the bar, but Castle waves it off to the bartender.

"It's on the house."

Her brow furrows as she lifts her head. "You - you own this place?"

"Bought it a few years ago after we... I needed something to do."

She bites her lip and nods, retrieving her drink from the bar. "Can we talk?"

"Of course." He almost touches her, almost places a palm to the soaked curve of her shoulder, but he fists his hands instead and leads her towards the booth he's occupied for the night.

She shimmies out of the dripping trench coat, frowning at the water puddling on the floor.

"Here," he says, taking the coat from her thin fingers. "I'll hang this for you and grab a couple of towels from the back."

"Thank you," she murmurs, wrapping her arms around herself, trying to conceal the shivers that have been racing up and down her spine since she stepped inside.

When he returns she's still standing beside the booth and he drapes the larger of the two towels over her shoulders, folds the other on the cushion of the seat for her, and she gives him an appreciative attempt at a smile as he slides in across from her.

She spots the paper in the middle of the table before he can move it out of the way and he feels his neck heat with slight embarrassment when her eyes land on the article about her.

"Congratulations, by the way."

She sighs and takes a swig of the shimmering brown liquid, wincing as it sluices down her throat.

"Thanks."

The response confuses him. He was sure he'd get a real smile at the mention of her long awaited victory.

"She's proud of you," he murmurs, hoping he isn't overstepping, hoping she already knows. "Wherever she is, she's proud."

Kate looks up from her drink, meets his gaze and allows him to see the hollowness that claims her cheeks, the lack of color in her eyes, the lack of life.

"I thought it would be more than this," she admits, glancing back to her hands, her brow creasing with frustration. "I thought the day I found justice for her, I would feel... whole."

"You don't?" he asks, wishing he could touch her, comfort her.

She shakes her head, a barely discernible movement that fills those hollow eyes of hers with shame.

"I feel empty."

It makes his heart ache. They ended on harsh terms, on bitter remarks and wounded glares. They ended before they could ever begin. But he never stopped hoping for the best for Kate Beckett. She deserved the best, not emptiness.

"I should have let you stay," she confesses on a whisper, scraping a hand through the wet mop of her hair. "Shouldn't have pushed you away."

"I should have come back," he counters. "I wanted to come back."

"I wanted to call you. Dialed your number so many times. I wanted you around when I caught her killer. You were supposed to be-" She takes a shuddering breath and looks away.

He isn't sure how to answer, how to process that he wasn't alone in his remorse and longing. He had deemed it impossible that she would ever miss him after banishing him from the precinct - why would she? - but now she's sitting here, admitting to regrets of making him go and calls that went unmade.

What a mess they make.

"I'm here now," he points out. "A little late, but we're here and I'm proud of you."

He can only see half of the watery smile that stretches her chapped lips.

"I know I'm wet and cold," she starts, her voice a raspy, waterlogged thing stuck in her throat. "But will you sit with me?"

He doesn't hesitate, circles around to her side of the booth and slides in close, but the arm he coils around her shoulders is reluctant, because this is the opposite of everything they ever were and a piece of everything he's ever wanted, and she's letting him hold her.

Her body curls in, shivering and small and perfect against his chest. The damp mane of her hair soaks his shirt, the cold skin of her forehead to his cheek has goosebumps scattering along his flesh, and her trembling fingers rise, grazing along the side of his neck, up to the edge of his jaw. He rubs her back, hoping to elicit some heat beneath the drenched fabric of her shirt, but his hands pause when she speaks.

"I'm sorry, Castle," she sighs, lifting her head to find his eyes. "I wish - I'm sorry we wasted so much time."

He cups her face, watches in something close to fascination when she leans into his palm.

"Me too," he concedes, tracing a thumb over the curve of her eyebrow.

Part of him wonders if it's all happening too quickly, this newfound pleasure in touching her, this foreign openness in which she speaks to him, confesses. He wonders if too much time has passed for them to be allowed this type of effortless mending and connection, but it doesn't feel like time has passed. They're both older now, weary with hardships faced alone, but she's still the woman he swore he could love nearly four years ago. The only difference is now, he feels she could allow herself to love in return.

"Can we stop?" she asks, just above a whisper as her gaze flutters from his eyes to his mouth. "Wasting time?"

He nods, leaning in brushing his lips over hers, tasting the burn of the whiskey when her breath stutters, tasting the rain when tentative hands splay at his jaw and draw him closer, allowing him inside the warm cavern of her mouth.

The kiss is soft, gentle and exploratory, flavored with caution and yearning, and he winds his arms around her in the confined space of the booth, keeps her as close as possible. A quiet moan escapes her as he sucks her bottom lip, spans a hand over the cage of her ribs and feels the arch of her spine.

He breaks their first kiss at the sound of a throat clearing, glances over his shoulder to see Tony, his head bartender, standing before the table, awkwardly twisting his apron in his hands.

"Sorry, sir, I just thought you should know it's closing time."

Beckett ducks her head, forehead dropping to press against his clavicle, and he squeezes her hip in halfhearted apology.

"Thank you, Tony. You can head out, I'll lock up."

Tony nods and wastes no time making his getaway.

"Castle?"

Rick glances down, sees Kate watching him through the dark curtain of her lashes, her eyes vivid with colors he's never seen - golds and browns and greens, all darkened with lust.

"Could we go back to your place?"

He slips out of the booth, holding onto her hand until they reach the entrance of the empty bar. He shuts off the lights and grabs his coat from the rack, lifts it for her.

She quirks an eyebrow, but smiles as she pushes her arms through the sleeves that flow past her fingertips and tangles her hand in his once she shakes it free.

He carries her still damp trench over his arm and leads her out into the storm still raging outside.

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><p>"Is anyone else here?" she asks, scanning the empty expanse of his loft as he returns from the laundry room, where her coat is undergoing a gentle cycle in the dryer.<p>

"No," he murmurs. "Alexis is at Stanford for her second year and Mother decided to move out a few months ago so she could be closer to her acting studio."

They both grew tired of living with a shell of a man, he's sure of that even if they adamantly refused to admit it. He still talks to his daughter every day, still sees his mother every week, but after his writing career began to crumble, his personal life took a turn for the worse. He tried, but he failed to be enjoyable company for the most part.

Kate's hand covers his, tugs in the direction of his office. He allows her to lead, meander her way to his bedroom, but as she stops in front of his bed, turns to him with searching eyes, he hesitates.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asks, sweeping the drying hair away from her face. "We could just talk for tonight, sleep, whatever you want."

She uses the hand still linked in hers to pull him closer, curling the other at the nape of his neck and skimming her thumb over the sensitive patch of skin beneath his ear.

"I want you," she answers and he doesn't think he's ever heard her sound so sincere in those two and a half years of knowing her. "We could wait, take things slower, but I know what I want, Castle."

"Will you still want the same things tomorrow?" he says, so low he isn't sure she'll hear, almost hopes she doesn't, because he doesn't want to ruin this, doesn't want to scare her away, but if he wakes up alone in the morning... he doesn't think he can handle losing her again.

She tilts her chin up, the heels of her boots hoisting her high enough to reach his mouth with little trouble, but she doesn't kiss him.

"I've regretted missing out on us for a long time, Castle. I'm not going to give it up now."

They fall to the soft mattress of his unmade bed together, his mouth fused to hers and his hands under her shirt. He trails his lips down the graceful line of her throat, over the sculpted bones of her shoulders, her collarbones, down to the exposed skin of her chest where her shirt's come undone. He stills when his lips encounter a raised, uneven circle of flesh between her breasts.

He opens his eyes to the round scar, his breath catching at the sight of the bullet wound he's only seen in nightmares. He had read about her shooting in the paper, remembers with vivid clarity how his insides had shredded and torn at the news of her closest encounter with death. That had been two years ago.

"Rick." He looks up at the rare sound of his first name tumbling past her lips, finds her watching him with a hint of trepidation, and he lowers his mouth once more, kisses her scar, and returns to her mouth, confesses unspoken love with his lips and his tongue and the worship of her body, but no words.

Not yet.

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><p>"You stopped writing."<p>

He blinks away the calls of sleep and glances to his side, where she's lying on her stomach beside him, her hands curled underneath her sternum while one of her legs is laced around his thigh. He can barely see her, the room is dark, only illuminated by the occasional flash of lightning every few minutes, but he can identify her eyes in the dimness, watching him.

"I stopped writing," he sighs, extending a hand towards her, skating his fingers along the slope of her naked shoulder.

"Thank you for not killing Nikki."

His hand pauses over the winged blade of her scapula.

"I never would have killed her."

"I wouldn't have blamed you," she continues softly, uncoiling one of her arms from her chest and touching her index finger to his chin, tracing her nail over the faded scar there.

"I wanted to keep writing her, but I - just couldn't."

"What happened to her, to Rook?" she whispers, following the trail of her finger as it explores the plain of his cheek.

"They fell apart for a while," he sighs, slipping an arm beneath her torso, coaxing her deeper into his side. She inches closer, the long line of her body melting against his, her head tilting forward to share his pillow. "Rook finally decided to leave Nikki alone and they both followed separate paths in life."

"That's how you ended it for them, even here?" she questions, tapping gently at his temple.

"No," he admits, relishing the soft scratch of her fingernails along his scalp. "In my head, they can't go very long without their paths crossing."

She smirks. "Kismet, huh?"

He chuckles. "Something like that. But you always struck me as someone who refused to buy into the concept of fate," he muses, tangling his fingers in the curling mess of her hair.

"Not with everything," she replies, pressing her toes against his calf muscle beneath the single sheet draped across their waists. "But I can believe in whatever brought us here."

He twines both of his arms around her, embraces her for a long moment as she laughs softly against his chest. This thing between them won't be easy, they're still essentially the same people they were four years ago when he was sure they were parting ways for forever, still stubborn and challenging and different in ways that should push them apart. They'll fight, they'll both screw up, but this time... this time he'll stay.

She wiggles free from his grasp a second later, stretching against him before rising, the sheet slipping from her body as she straddles his waist.

His eyebrows hitch as she sifts her fingers through the unruly locks of her hair, not a hint of the subtle shyness that had accompanied her earlier in the night as she sits above him.

"Round two?" he quips, grinning as she bends forward, bumping her nose against his.

"Of many," she hums, nipping at his bottom lip. "We have a lot of catching up to do, Castle."

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><p>She wakes sore and sated to the quiet cadence of fingers on a keyboard next to her.<p> 


End file.
